a hunt of blood and admiration
by Pokka
Summary: "Sometimes I just don't get you. Are you like us," the fabled 'us', this subsection of humanity, a breed of his own, "or a little different?" The look she cuts him is sharper than a blade, more meaningful than that first drop of blood upon the dusty earth. "Hopefully a little different."


He waits for her, just outside the bandit camp. Far enough away they don't notice him, close enough to smell the rotten stink wafting from the festering sore. He makes more arrows as he sits, hidden amongst the tall grass, the absent twist of wire around the wooden shaft busy-work to keep his hands occupied as his eyes scan the horizon.

She'd come, he knows. She always does.

It's when the sun begins to set, the sky ablaze like a world on fire, when she comes streaking into view astride her mechanical mount. His lips curl into a smile on their own volition, and he catches a ray of dying light on a bit of watcher lens. He knows she's seen him by the way she tilts her body, steering her steed off the beaten path, hair streaming behind her as if the blazing sky had spit a flame upon the daring huntress.

His pulse quickens accordingly, blood singing to the beat of the war drum in his heart. The thrill of the hunt was upon them, their unknowing targets drawing their last wasted breaths. It's exhilarating; the feeling amplified by his companion. Something about her unwillingness to acknowledge this part of her, this guilty pleasure that she shared with him, made the kill all the more fun. Since joining with her, sharing hunts with her, he's found doing them on his own to be...lackluster.

Even more than that, there's a pang of loss in his chest each time he came across a camp she'd already cleared; there and gone before he'd even caught whiff of a fight, her beautiful artwork swept away by the common rabble, left to rot in the sun. Briefly, he wonders if she feels the same, knows she wouldn't admit it even if she did.

The huntress slips off her chosen broadhead, landing lightly on her feet, giving the metal beast an almost affectionate pat on the rear as it begins to munch on the dry shrubbery. She rolls her shoulders as she drops into a crouch before him, eyebrows raised expectantly. She knows he's scouted the area, knows he's been waiting patiently for her arrival. Few people would call him predictable, but she's beginning to stand on the precipice.

"I waited for you," he says by way of greeting, helpless to the way he bares his own teeth at the sight of her smile. "Time passing pulls the anticipation right as a wire." He pulls on the wire of his now-finished arrow pointedly, clipping off the leftover with his knife. Her eyes glitter in the dying light, an all-knowing green-gold that gives away the what's hiding beneath that pretty, naive face.

"Hello, Nil." She breathes, the line of her body only suggesting at the violence under her skin, taught like a bowstring drawn and ready to fire.

"How many has it been now?" He asks, knowing what she'll say, knowing exactly how many hunts he missed out on.

"You know I don't keep track of that kind of thing." But the jump in the muscle of her jaw says otherwise, a twitch for each camp she took on without him.

"Don't keep count?" He affects to an affronted tone, playful in the way he is only with her. "Sometimes I just don't get you. Are you like us," the fabled 'us', this subsection of humanity, a breed of his own, "or a little different?"

The look she cuts him is sharper than a blade, more meaningful than that first drop of blood upon the dusty earth. "Hopefully a little different."

"That's what you're going to tell yourself." He says, challenging, looking to pull a slice of truth, an admission, like pulling the entrails from an unsuspecting enemy. She merely huffs a laugh, slipping past him to take her own look at the camp. Nil allows himself his own smile, feels the adrenaline sluice over his muscles like the gentle embrace of a favored lover. "Shall we get started?"

She touches that jewel at her temple, a blue ring blooming to life, and her eyes dance at whatever she sees. "Looks to be about two, maybe three, dozen." She breathes, quiet as a breeze slipping through trees. Gone are whatever vestiges of that curious, naive Nora girl everyone else seemed to see, that she herself saw, and instead was the huntress, his partner. Body beautiful and honed in the art of killing, a weapon in herself, and underused, in his humble opinion.

Here, she was in her element. Here, she needn't be anyone but herself. Her truest self.

"Take the lead," he offers, knowing her well enough to know that she wouldn't follow in his footsteps even if he'd asked nicely.

She notches an arrow and smoothly pulls it into position, near invisible in the tall grass. Nil follows suit, waiting with bated breath for the delicious sound of her arrow finding its home in a bandit's eye socket. His thought hadn't even finished when he heard it, followed by the accompanying thump of the sentry's body hitting the platform. He quickly drops the guard on the ground, silencing him before he could alert the rest of their prey. She catches the third guard, arrow slipping through his temple silent as a thought and just as quick. Nil can smell the scent of copper on the wind, mixing with the humidity of oncoming rain. He shakes his shoulders loose, like one of the big metal cats that prowel the hinterlands, and moves to trap his next kill.

The huntress stops him, strong arm barring across his chest and stopping him dead. She says nothing, just holds the both of them still as four bandits come rushing to the gate to investigate their fallen brethren. He glances at the arm still pressed across his torso, then to the girl it's attached to. If she notices his eyes on her face, she doesn't show it, too involved with the hunt to pay him any more mind than absolutely necessary. They hold still, with bated breath, until the bandits warily wander off. She moves her arm, and together they skirt around the camp, up onto a rise on the western side, slipping into another patch of tall grass. Again, she touches that jewel at her temple.

She can barely hold back the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth at whatever she sees and, not for the first time, he wonders what that Old World device can reveal to make the dangerous Nora girl grin.

She draws her bow, pulls the string to the corner of her grinning mouth, and takes another life. He's jealous, primarily, that she can so easily spot and tag her prey long before he can even get a bead on them. She drops two more while he keeps watch, eyeing her blindspot, half-tempted to just roll into the camp and take them all on with nothing but his knife just to feel their blood on his skin and watch the life leave their eyes. Nil blinks, turning to the movement at the corner of his eye, and finds three untouched men milling about; untouched by the huntress' arrows.

Nil quirks a questioning brow, looking to his hunting partner to see what could possibly keep her from seeking the thrill of the kill, and finds her staring at him, bow settled in her lap. When she moved, it was carefully, slowly, like she was dealing with a cornered animal, and he freezes accordingly. Her hand, small and cool and calloused, find the skin of his lower back, fingertips pressing into his spine. The familiarity in which she touches him has him speechless, startled. It's in that moment he realizes that he hasn't been touched by anyone not on the brink of death in years, never felt skin-on-skin without the intention of harm.

She slips around him, settles on his other side, close. He feels the heat radiation off her skin, warming him in the cool night, smells the tang of machine oil and tree sap that follows her like the shadow of death they cast upon festering camps such as these. "What're you-" He begins to question, but she silences him with a single look. Nil watches, silent as the snakes that slip through the same grass they do. She pulls that little shard off her face, and with the slightest hesitation, to see if he'd pull away, she presses it to his face. He waits a moment, curious as to what could possibly be so interesting about a little hunk of metal, and he's tempted to scoff and take it off. She presses her fingers to it, the barest hint of pressure, and suddenly his world has been made anew in glowing lines of blue and purple.

He turns to her, wide-eyed, and watches in amazement as the little device recognizes her, mapping the lines of her face, bringing up a box with her name on it: _Aloy_. How he'd never known it before, how they had gone all this time without a proper introduction, he doesn't know. _Aloy_. He wants to say it aloud, feel it roll over his tongue like the taste of life, the burn of death. The girl with hair like a splash of blood, tenacious as a scrapper's jaws. The smile that spreads on her face reaches her eyes, different, he now sees, from the baring of teeth she gives at the sight of a hunt. She presses those same fingers now to his jaw, turns his face and his searching silver eyes to the prize, watches as he sees their prey light up orange, as that peculiar hunger curls his lip and blows his pupils wide.

 _Now_ he sees what it is that makes her giddy, what ignites that hunger in her otherwise perfectly sated face. Watching them totally unaware, seeing their every move, the beat of their heart from yards away, it's intoxicating. Nil spares a glance at his partner, finds her still watching him with that all-knowing gaze, finds that her hunger has returned, called to the surface at the sight of his own. They share a smile full of teeth.

As one they draw their weapons and descend upon the camp.

In the after, once the prisoners are freed and the bandits have been properly eviscerated, they sit perched atop a sniper's platform, Aloy's focus returned to its rightful place upon her temple. They share a chunk of dried meat, the hunger for bloodshed replaced by _actual_ hunger. Nil nudges her shoulder with his own, comfortable in this unusual companionship, surprised when she nudges him back. Normally, they're both gone with on the first wind to blow through a cleared camp, parting ways with little more than an acknowledging nod and a vague promise of ' _next time'._ Something changed with this hunt, something shifting in their center balance and sending them spiraling into each others orbits.

Perhaps the beginning of the end. With no more bandits to slaughter and all other prey of interest tangled up in politics, there wasn't much left to draw them together. If he was a sentimental man, he'd even dare to say it's bittersweet, but he knows himself well. Well enough to know that _this_ can't be their last meeting. It's almost insulting, the thought of leaving a mere bandit camp as their final farewell when their true goodbye could hold a much better note of _finality_.

From here, all he would need is the perfect arena, the best place to take a last stand against the huntress, the Nora, _Aloy_.

He even thought, perhaps, that he could take her.


End file.
